


And it all goes wrong

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character of Color, Episode Related, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things kind of suck a whole lot right now, but it's easier for Kevin to believe in Sam Winchester than not believe in him. Coda for 8.07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And it all goes wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Dire Straits. Thank you to geckoholic for the beta.

Kevin leaned his head against the window of the car, picturing lines of musical notes and remembering their sound. It helped him with the panic that still scraped at him, trying to get in. There wasn't any room for it--panic like that was for back when he was anxious about passing a test or whether he'd suck donkey balls at his next recital, not for this world where demons and angels were actual real things. 

Wrapped in its bandage, Kevin's hand throbbed, interrupting the flow of cello music in his head, and Kevin quietly let out a breath that was either a laugh or a sob, because his finger was gone and wasn't that a cliché, he might never play the cello again. Not that he could play the cello while on the lam. Anyway, whether he played the cello again or not, losing his finger was one more metronome tick from the life he'd had into this new one. 

"Kevin, you doing okay?" his mother asked, eyes flicking away from the road. 

The Impala was ahead of them, Sam acting as their guide and protection. Sam had told his brother to stay behind and get some rest--Dean had looked kind of worn out, although not as wrecked as his angel friend (an actual angel, Kevin wasn't getting over that any time soon, but then he wasn't getting over a lot of other things).

"Yeah," Kevin said. The weight of the broken tablet was heavy on his lap, inside the rucksack.

"I just texted Sam. I told him we're going to pull in to the next rest stop for food and pee breaks."

Kevin leaned back again as the Impala took the turn. They followed, pulling into the rest stop parking area, and parked next to the Impala. Linda got out and did a full-body stretch.

"If we exhaust ourselves, that makes us more vulnerable to the enemy," she announced, peering sharply around the picnic area. 

"That's not bad advice." Sam scanned the area for potential threats as well, but did it with a lot more subtlety than Linda had. 

A trucker walked by them, and Sam tensed, but the guy didn't so much as look their way, and Sam relaxed again. Their very own bodyguard. 

Slinging the strap of the rucksack over his shoulder, Kevin got out of the car, thinking _Where were you then?_ Kevin wasn't sure what had been scarier, the time when he was Crowley's captive or the time after he escaped, always moving, sleeping in abandoned buildings, wondering how long before Crowley caught him again.

He liked Sam, and it seemed like Sam meant it now about watching after them. But there were all those months Kevin had been on his own and Sam was completely off the grid. Sam and Dean Winchester and an angel in a trenchcoat--they all might as well have been figments of his imagination, products of a stress coping mechanism. 

So yeah, Kevin had no idea.

While his mom went to get food, Kevin followed Sam to claim one of the picnic benches beneath the pines. A trio of college kids sat at another table, laughing and teasing each other. One of them threw a mustard packet at the girl, who stuck out her tongue. It was still there, that life, tucked next to this other one. 

Some things he'd never get back, like Channing's laugh.

They sat opposite each other. Kevin kept the tablet in its bag right next to him, touching his thigh.

"Let me check your wound," Sam said, reaching out.

Kevin pulled his hand back. "No, it's fine."

"I have to check the bandage, and it has to be watched for infection." Sam kept his hand held out, palm flat, quietly waiting. 

At first, Castiel had offered to attempt to heal Kevin's hand, saying he wasn't positive he had enough "mojo" to do it (Kevin could hear the quotes in his voice), and would do his best. But Kevin had stepped back. 

Something more than disappointment had showed in the angel's face. He kind of looked the way Kevin had always felt when he'd studied his brains out for a test and didn't get 100%. 

After that, they'd taken Kevin to an ER instead.

It had just been too much, the idea of this angel doing some glowy weird crap directly to his body. Not that he wasn't grateful for the impressive glowy crap Castiel had pulled with Crowley. Kevin still felt a little shaky thinking about it. As with Sam and Dean, Kevin couldn't decide whether Castiel fell more to the frightening or reassuring end of the scale.

Kevin put his bandaged hand onto Sam's palm. With careful pressure, Sam gripped Kevin's wrist with one hand and unwrapped the bandage with the other, down to the gauze. Only a small amount of brownish red stained it. Sam studied it, caught his lower lip between his teeth, and nodded.

"Doesn't look too bad." Sam re-wrapped Kevin's hand and let go. "You might want to reconsider Cas' offer to fix that, though."

Kevin drew his hand in against his clean sweatshirt. He wore a fresh t-shirt as well, his bloodied one tossed into the trash at the hospital. He'd been so relieved to have the stench of blood finally off of him. He needed a shower like he needed air, but there hadn't been a chance yet.

"You really mean that, what you told me? About how it'll get better?"

"Better, then worse, then better, then so bad you actually wish you'd die, and then better again." Sam's lips quirked, a sad almost-smile that made Kevin believe him, not just in the how horrible it could get part, because that was excruciatingly obvious, but in the getting better part. But it was easier to believe in Sam than to doubt him, so Kevin couldn't say how much he really believed in Sam Winchester.

"Things kind of suck a whole lot right now," Kevin pointed out.

"Take it from me, it could be so much worse."

"Gee, that's very reassuring."

"It's meant to be," Sam said, without a hint of sarcasm. He leaned his elbows on the worn red boards of the picnic table. "There are going to be times when you don't even know if you can tie your own shoes any more." He fidgeted with a metal button on the sleeve of his jacket, suddenly unable to look at Kevin. "When the bottom falls out and you're caught like a scared animal in the headlights."

"You're a barrel of puppies and sunshine, Sam." 

"Sorry, I'm just--"

"I got us all salads." Linda interrupted, dropping plastic containers of food on the table. "We need to keep eating healthy, even under these conditions. _Especially_ under these conditions. Also we should get a few more super-soakers." She sat down and arranged everything, the salads, tiny cups of dressing, napkins, paper plates, and plastic forks, with the same brisk precision Kevin had seen people use in scenes in movies where the military are planning an attack. "We're also low on holy water."

"First chance we get," Sam said. "Plus Garth knows what he's doing, he'll have stuff." He picked up a plastic fork. 

Kevin ate his salad--the lettuce was kind of limp but it was food, and Kevin had learned not to be picky all those months hiding out--and tried to regain the line of cello music in his head. 

It was getting harder to remember.

~end


End file.
